I have a confession to make. I don’t live a minimalist life of decluttered simplicity. I have too much unused stuff packed in too many boxes stacked on too many shelves. And while I could do better in this respect, there are other cluttered parts of our lives in need of some spring-cleaning as well.

Too many of us suffer from our own cluttered emotional closets stuffed with messy habits of thought and crowded feelings we’ve clung to for far too long.

Perhaps it’s time we practiced a little emotional minimalism as well.

Now I want to make sure I’m very clear here. By “emotional minimalism” I’m not suggesting a life of emotional constipation, stifling feelings or beating ourselves up for feeling a bit sad or mad.

Rather, this is a call to do away with emotional clutter—all the junk we no longer want or use but sits in hearts gathering dust and causing problems.

5 Ways to Live an Uncluttered Emotional Life
(or emotional minimalism 101)

1. Minimize Anger

We have a bookshelf in the study with too many picture frames and plaques and other nick knacks and doodads on it. The result is lots of accumulated dust in inconvenient-to-clean places. Too much stuff gets in the way and too little dusting is done as a result.

Our anger can be like that as well. Our hearts get stuffed with too many emotional doohickeys that get increasingly difficult to clean out. Anger compounds upon anger and soon tiny infractions start to seem bigger and darker and more difficult to shrug off.

If anger has been getting in the way of your happiness or your relationships, it’s time to do something about it.

The binding habit of anger can be a powerful habit to break though. But you can start by refusing to blame others for your mood any longer. Stop assuming evil intent in others’ misplaced word, look or tone. Stop demanding perfection and just allow people to just be people, as flawed as we all are, without taking those flaws as personal insult and injury.

Let your tight grip on life loosen up enough to allow it to unfold without judgment. And while you’re loosening your grip, let anger slip out of your hand as well, and evaporate into a new attitude of compassion and patience.

2. Minimize Envy

Of all the spaces in my home, my garage is the most cluttered. We have unopened boxes stacked on metal shelving from 10 years ago when we first moved to our current home. I don’t even know what’s in them anymore.

The most pressing issue is a problem with available space. The more of the completely useless stuff we keep in the garage, the more of the periodically useful stuff has to be kept inside.

Envy can be just like that. It clutters hearts and dirties relationships until there is no more room for real love.

It is a form of selfishness and greed turned jealous with age. In other words, it’s a desire to get, not so much by getting, but by either taking what someone else has or taking pleasure in seeing theirs fall apart.

Envy rests on assumptions of life as a zero-sum game, that one person’s fortune means there’s less treasure available for me. Besides that kind of thinking being untrue, it is also self-sabotaging.

Instead, be happy for others good fortune. Take yourself out of the equation. Step into their shoes and let your heart open to them. Allow the cleansing quality of love to move through you as it passes to others. Love, after all, is the universal antidote to envy.

3. Minimize Grudges

Our youngest is six years old and we’re not having anymore kids. And yet it’s difficult to let go of his baby stuff. We have old baby clothes and his crib and toys he no longer plays with in the garage. They fill boxes, crates and bags on shelves.

So why do we keep it all? In part they are physical representations of precious memories. My wife worries that our memories will fade when the things representing them are no longer around to see and remind us.

Aren’t we like that too when it comes to holding onto grudges? We get hurt and hold onto the pain for fear of forgetting, and thereby becoming vulnerable to getting hurt again.

But that’s no way to live. Living life looking in the rear-view mirror keeps you standing still or bumping into all the obstacles along the path in front of you.

Instead, toss out the bottled-up hatred. Let go of the need to punish and just open your heart and forgive. Unplug the drains of hurt. And take each moment as a moment unto itself, free of roots buried in the past or future.

4. Minimize Fear

We have a sleeping bag, a few boots and gloves and other miscellaneous camping equipment in the back of my car. The thing is, the camping trip we packed for was over a year ago.

And so here I am hauling camping equipment around in my car wherever I go. There’s a lesson here because sometimes we take emotional clutter where it’s not needed as well. Fear is one such piece of junk we often haul around unnecessarily.

You can’t completely eliminate fear and probably shouldn’t. It’s a handy device to have when contemplating a casual swim in shark-infested waters. Recklessness, after all, is the total absence of fear, not the presence of courage. But don’t let fear control you. Courage is taking right action in spiteof being afraid. Still, the intensity of fear can and often should be reduced in those who become overwhelmed with anxiety over the object of their fears. This is particularly true when those fears are not rational.

Fearing a lion, for instance, while strolling through the Serengeti alone, munching on some fried chicken, can be a rational fear. Fearing a lion in Central Park is not. Fearing shark attack while splashing around the Great Barrier Reef is rational. Fearing shark attack while swimming at night in the backyard pool is not.

As you buckle down and move forward despite your fears, you will usually come to realize the fear itself was much larger than the reality of it.

5. Minimize Pessimism

I don’t know how many trash bags of old clothes we’ve given to charity over the years. We don’t ask for anything in return. We simply give it away. That’s a strategy we can use for our habits of negative thinking too. Give it all away. Don’t hold on to it for another moment. Don’t ask for proof that things will work out or that things will turn out better than you may suspect. Just donate them. Leave them at the doorstep and resolutely walk the other way.

Pessimists have the advantage of always being right (at least in their own minds). Why? Because they ignore the 1,000 times things turned out pretty good and declare victory once something bad happens that their optimist counterparts failed to predict.

But they also push people away and damage relationships. They corrupt happiness and cripple growth and opportunity and excellence and success.

So bundle up your negative thinking and ship off the ugly package of self-defeat and surrender to the far away land of No More.

Afterthoughts

We all come with baggage. That just makes us human. The biggest problem is when we keep adding more junk to our already over-stuffed emotional bags, never throwing anything out, never letting anything go, holding on to every new insult, hurt feeling and angry thought.

There are steps we can take to clear the emotional clutter and live happier, freer, more peaceful lives. I hope I’ve introduced some of those steps to you here, or at least inspired you to look for your own steps to clear the clutter that is still acting as a drag on your happiness

Spring is upon us, so go clean out a closet or something. But while you’re at it, unpack a heavy heart as well. That’s some spring cleaning you’ll be happy you performed this year.

41 Comments

Minimalism from the inside sounds like a great idea
we need to clean our hearts from hatred and other bad emotions so that it becomes healthy
thanks Ken : )farouk recently posted … How to know if a guy is not that into you

So many hearts are filled with so much of the dirt and mud of life. So it just struck me as I read about decluttering and minimalizing and doing with less from a growing number of blogs talking about such things, that hearts could use that same counsel.

So true, Alex. We definitely should not wait for a once-a-year opportunity to sift through our internal clutter to do whatever cleaning and repair work is needed! Waiting only makes what needs cleaning that much more difficult to clean. Better to clean as you go!

It took me awhile to learn that anger did not really serve my best interests. Of course, I was only righteously angry, never “wrongously” angry. Anger gave me energy and a sense of power and control. Looking at the fear underneath the anger was too scary.

I learned, though, what you are teaching here. The anger kept me defense/attack mode, always a victim of my own stories. Releasing my victim drama made defense/attack unnecessary. There was nothing to fear that I was not creating myself. Life became a lot easier! And happier. And yes, lighter.

In fact, this post has gotten me so excited about emotional spring cleaning, that maybe I can focus on that and not on the stuff piled up in the garage. Thanks!Galen Pearl recently posted … Breezes at Dawn

I love how you took us through the process of seeing your anger as righteously motivated, providing control and power to that place where you understood the anger as victimizing yourself with the undercurrent of fear, keeping you on your heels in a defensive posture or in attack mode. And then releasing the anger and control and power only to discover real power, ease, peace and happiness. Beautiful, Galen!

Have fun rummaging around your insides, cleaning and dusting and rearranging! Just don’t come yell at me when you can’t find that box you know you put somewhere in that garage of yours! 😉

Such similar habits and confessions to my own, Ken, that I had to laugh out loud. I just loved your first line – probably because I don’t, either, but I certainly like to image that I do. Or, at least, that I’m striving to move a little further in that direction. It’s amazing how much dust, clutter, and baggage we carry with us, both literally and figuratively. We humans are so likely to concentrate on our “stuff” and work to Spring clean our homes, our possessions, but rarely think to Spring clean our lives and selves. Great advice and a positive way to start a new season. I love how the universe works that way – always an opportunity for a fresh start if we only open our eyes to see.Lisa recently posted … Relatively Useless Skills

Oh my wife and I do a lot of talking about decluttering and throwing out and giving away and consolidating and clearing out and minimalizing. But unfortunately, we haven’t reached the point of actually doing it. I think my wife is closer to laying down the law soon, though. Just hasn’t been a priority for me yet, even though I know I would like the end result.

I can’t agree with you more, Lisa! Stuff just accumulates like there’s nothing else we do but buy things. But we don’t. It just stacks up on its own. I’m convinced we have dust and debris elves or gnomes living under the house that come out at night just to clutter things up!

I’m with you on the new beginning thing too! I love Springtime for that very reason. It’s renewing. It symbolizing freshness, starting over, rebirth, newness and rediscovery.

We kindred spirits, Allen. Nature has a way of centering me. I feel refocused and at peace in a way nothing else can fully replicate. There is something at the same time powerful, humbling, and yet soft and harmonious, even in the midst of natures unpredictability that somehow comes together in a rejuvenating way that refurbishes my soul.

I can also relate well to your method of minimizing anger: stepping into their shoes. Sometimes I imagine the guy who cuts me off in traffic rushing home to a pregnant wife in labor or to the hospital to get to his hurt son. I helps me change my attitude about the otherwise angering situation.

Another top drawer post Ken. I am working hard on the anger issue at the moment. I understand just how toxic this behavior is for me and I guess that is a starting point. Thanks for sharing.Wade Balsdon recently posted … Finding the best way to diet

Thanks Wade. Anger is a tough one. Especially in cultures that almost celebrate its expression. But it can be so damaging as well. So kudos to you for working on it. It’s a great starting point, Wade, perhaps the best starting point.

I’ve usually been ok with people—pretty patient with their goof-ups. But I do lose my temper a bit with things. When that darned screw driver just won’t grip or the keys just won’t appear where I knew I put them or the garage door still won’t open correctly!

We can quickly get used to the stacks of books, doodads on the shelves and dust in the corners, can’t we! Same with the emotional conditions of lives that are on autopilot much of the time. We all get like that, for sure. So sometimes a good scheduled cleaning out of old emotions and thought patterns is a necessary thing to keep traveling with the wind at our backs.

Amen and well said! This is a great list – some of the things we definitely need to spring clean from our lives. Sometimes I think I’m too careful. This may be some residue of fear from my younger life.

I’m working on getting this to a normal level. Thanks for an inspiring post.Anne recently posted … Self-Confidence In You

Thanks Anne. “Too careful” is a pretty common characteristic of the human condition. But the good news is that we can always take baby steps toward taking appropriate risks as we work to create the life we want to live.

I’m a fan of minimalism, but not yet a practitioner! But we have taken very small baby steps in the general direction of minimalism. OK, maybe we can’t count them as actual steps, but we’re looking in that direction and thinking about taking a step. 😉

But I do practice emotional minimalism, clearing out the old emotional archives and refilling myself with “joy and love and positivity.”

Always a pleasure, David! Where have you been traveling to? Seems a lot of my blogging buddies have been off gallivanting around the globe! Hope your travels were fruitful (if for business), restful (if for pleasure) and adventurous whether for business or pleasure!

Hello Ken,
I stumbled upon your site (and enjoyed a long visit) because I’ve realized I don’t like me anymore; not the inner me I know exists but the external me that I got into the habbit of presenting all too often and I wanted some guidance to help focus on bettering myself as a whole person. I have some work to do with emotional decluttering and reigning in my ego. The nice thing about finally looking for guidance is that I see all is not lost. The very fact that I realized change is not only needed but desired was in itself an improvement, I also realized I haven’t gotten so far out of control that I don’t still have some goodness and generosity at heart; I see the path and my mind actually opening up quite quickly.

Your guidance is comforting and logical, so are the comments from your followers. It’s actually nice to see so many adults wanting to continue to grow and it makes me realize that I’m not the only one who’s lost my way a little at this stage of the game when sometimes we think we should have it ‘all together’.

You mention that the realization that change is needed and desired is itself improvement. I would add that it is profound and essential improvement. There can be no lasting change without the identification of what needs changing and the desire to make those changes. Without that internal shift, no external one can be sustained for long.

If there was no decency in your heart and soul, there would be no desire to change in the first place. So I totally agree with you that the spark of goodness has not gone cold.

I’m actually on the same path you’re on. We all are. Some take breaks or wander off for a while, some are further down the road and others trying to catch their breath in the back. But we’re all imperfect creatures winding down the road of life, trying to figure it out, trying to do what’s right, trying to add meaning and purpose to our lives. Some people try to add it by putting things in their lives that don’t actually add the meaning they’re trying to embrace. But the motive is still likely the same as those who make better choices.

So we all love and welcome you to our shared journey with open arms, my friend. All we can do is learn and grow and become one principle, one day and one step at a time. In that way, we’re all in exactly the same place.

I truly look forward to seeing more of you here in the comments, Shaz. Thanks for your openness and honesty—yet another example that your heart beats with decency.

We all need mental spring cleaning but not always waiting until spring to do it is always the best. When I slow down and take a good look at the world we currently live in compare it to the world I grew up in, it doesn’t seem to take long for negative emotions to well up in me. If I don’t clean them out periodically, those emotions can be damaging to myself and everyone around me. So maybe for me I need to do these things alittle more often than once a year!Amy recently posted … Capture His Heart Reviews – Who is It Really Working For?

Absolutely agree with you, Amy. Annual spring cleaning of the heart and soul is allowing small problems to grow into large ones. Better to tackle life’s cluttered parts as they get cluttered. Then we stay more focused, streamlined, at peace and happy.

I also like that you point out our emotional clutter can do damage to others in our lives as well. I need DAILY cleaning to stay on top of all I need to clean out!

Recently my husband and I went through an entire Office Depot file box full of our earlier marriage memories, hikes and family pictures. We whittled that box down to a five inch stack of our favorite photos, trying to keep not one more than we needed. Memories lost? No. What remains in our hearts and in our minds will be with us till the end of time and it is the stories that will be remembered long beyond our fading eyesight.Cheryl recently posted … Grasslands integrated into forest gardens

Thanks for sharing that Cheryl. It’s so true that our hearts will hang on to all the precious memories long after our eyes see only faded blurs.

But as you’ve decluttered your home, have you worked on decluttering your heart of old wounds and painful memories? Most of us have junk from the past (guilt, shame, regret, grudges, pain) that need some cleaning out too. I think that’s the larger challenge.

PS: Great to have you here, Cheryl. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your story!

Actually we are on our way to becoming “minimalists” – though I like to stay away from definite terms. Slowly we have found how much is enough and we tend to live in the now and the future, rather than reliving our lives over breakfast… though living on a homestead for the past seven years we have some stories to tell over coffee or beer 🙂Cheryl recently posted … Grasslands integrated into forest gardens

Living in the now instead of in the past is a great antidote to so much of the emotional clutter of those who dwell on past grievances and unmet needs. I admire your dedication to ridding your life of “excess baggage.”

Haha! Well, not sure external snow allows us to wait to shovel internal driveways, Sindi! Emotional spring cleaning, in fact, can be done all year long (SHOULD be done all year long) so the emotional and spiritual mounds of snow don’t become too overwhelming to clear out.

But if you have to wait, go ahead. Just don’t wait too long. Snow has a way of freezing us in place. 😉

My husband and I are on different wavelengths about the value of clutter. I tend to discredit “things” as dust catchers, but he always reminds me to stop and consider all the memories that many of the pieces we own hold. I try to remember that is what he sees when he looks at the items and it has made me slow down and appreciate memories so much more – wherever and whenever we find them.

Thanks for stopping by, Stevie. There is so much memory tied to the things that represent them or that were involved or capture the moment of the memory. We have a box of old things we sometimes comb through as we think and talk about those precious moments.

But to the main point of the article, what do you do about the emotional clutter that gathers so much dust on the shelves of our hearts? Do you have a way of decluttering your present of past hurts and offenses?

I guess my biggest emotional clutter is resentment. I think I’d like more control of things I just can’t control, like health and general misfortune, even the death of loved ones.

I try very hard to include a couple things in daily activities that make me feel happy. It usually involves STOPPING. Stopping to see what is blooming in my flower garden before I go to work or stopping to “see” the family memorabilia around me, instead of just looking at or past it. Taking time to appreciate and trying to live in the moment helps to bring me back to what is important.

I’ve actually done some thinking about the issue of resentment and have come to an interesting conclusion (so far, anyway). And, by the way, I have no idea if this applies to you for obvious reasons, not knowing your position. But I think those who believe that everything happens for a reason benefit from avoiding a degree of despair, but suffer from the possibility of feeling resentment toward God or the Universe or Life. If there’s a “reason” for the death of a loved one, than conceivably, Life or God took them.

Personally, I don;t believe everything happens for a reason. I do believe in random acts of free will used poorly. While I would never try to dissuade someone of that belief, I just don’t accept it. I believe the girls who ran the stop sign and killed my grandma were not paying attention and ran a red light and killed my grandma, not that the universe was ready to take her so sent those girls to that intersection then distracted her or delivered my grandma to that location at just the “right” time. I don’t believe we’re puppets being directed by the Great Puppeteer.

So when bad things happen, when people die or economies crash or disaster strikes, I have no one and nothing to resent. It just happened. Life simply has a certain amount of tragedy woven into its very nature. People age. Some try to text and drive. Leaders make decisions that lead to wars. It’s not a malevolent deity that guides such events, it’s a deity-granted agency, right to choose, that allows for those things to happen.

Anyway, I’ve just been thinking along these lines and thought I would share my thinking with you. I would love to know your thoughts!

As for stopping, what a wonderful strategy! Many people are in such a rush to get from point “A” to point “Z” that everything that all the alphabet of life gets passed by in between. “Taking time to appreciate” is such an important part of living.

I pray that one day I could actually declutter my garage and my kid’s rooms! The problem is my kids (aged 21,24 & 27) live on their own (small apartment) and still don’t want me to get rid of their video games, wooden doll cradle, doll sets, books or train sets, etc. They have an attachment to these items and whenever I whisper the words sell or donate, its like being on trial. Thanks to A-1 moving and Storage and their professional storage services, I was able to keep their childhood alive and claim my home back.

Declutttering is a major issue in my family. Especially where it comes to the point that at the end of the day you are just the step-mum. I tried having my step-kids get rid of stuff and I’m known as the bad guy. They have a bunch of stuff that just lies around the place and no one seems to be using them and I’m like “hey guys, would you like to donate this to an orphanage, kids there would really appreciate it” and the reply is “No!My mom gave me that, I can’t give it away” yea my bad. So we came to an agreement to have these stuff boxed and place in a storage. Thanks to A-1 Moving & Storage, the job was done and I can finally call my house a home. Check out their website at http://www.a1moving.com/storage.cfm

I really relate to the analogy you have made between debris in our environment and the clutter of emotional junk we hold on to. I had an ‘aha’ moment and think I can just accept a friend for who they are, even if not who I need them to be. That way I can accept them, as you said, we’re all flawed. This is one of their flaws, it’s no joke and it’s not my imagination. If I can stop expecting them to be something else, then I’d be happy and free. And not pining and hurting. This is an old friend for whom I’m always there and it seems while they say they love me, they are not able to deliver (ie. when I lost my mom) and I feel abandoned. But nevertheless, they are there and I don’t want to destroy what’s there. Your blog helped me see that I can let it all go without expecting them to be any more than they are. Because they do love me, that’s not a lie, just that they are not very good at following up, so it feels like all talk. People are complicated! Meanwhile, I want to ask you to encourage your wife to read a great piece by a young man (I think it’s ‘being minimal’ and the guy’s name is Joshua). His mom died and he said that she lives in his smile, his actions and that sort of thing, but she was never her stuff. He inherited a ton of her collectibles in another state, and just decided to donate ALL of it. Personally, I’d want a few things but it was a great essay, very well written. It reminds us all that the relationships that matter are your children and you now, here. Their baby stuff et al, can live on with people who need a crib who may not have money (and before mildew or elements destroy it if it’s in the garage or basement), like a place that helps new immigrants, for instance. And to keep like, one or two of the items as tokens, but pitch the rest (people think digital pictures are a good idea and they are to an extent but is also more clutter), the really treasured things. Then you really appreciate what you have and it isn’t just collecting GUILT DUST. I read that if you keep an item because you feel guilty, pitch it immediately. At your own pace of course. But seriously. I loved your essay. We’re all in this together.

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My name is Ken Wert, the founder of M2bH. My purpose here is to teach you how to live a richer life of greater purpose and meaning, of mind-blowing possibility and deeper, more soul-satisfying happiness than you ever dreamt was possible. Join us on this happy adventure as you learn how to unlock your hidden potential to enjoy the rewards of a life well lived. Read more ...